I am a blessed man. I am the father of three terrific sons, one of whom is a father himself, and a very good one I might add. I'd like to take the credit, but I suspect I serve more as a good "bad role model." My wife, Christine, deserves all the credit for the goodness in each of my sons.

For so many years, I was away selling insurance or giving speeches, so Christine had to do double duty as a father and a mother. When I would be gone speaking for two weeks at a time, I would write daily to my sons. I always sent the notes to their teacher at school. The teachers would keep a map on the wall and would follow my movement and discuss geography and other stuff.

The notes told them a little about the city I was in and the group to which I was speaking that particular day. Occasionally something odd would happen and tell them about that as well. Like the time I fell off a stage in Orlando while speaking to the National Association of REALTORS. And the time I was speaking in Atlanta to Sales & Marketing International. The stage actually folded up on me with me right in the middle of it. And then there was the speech in the New Orleans Super Dome where a streaker walked across my stage. Well, to be fair, I didn't share every story with them.

But it wasn't always about stuff that had gone wrong. Many of the notes told of interesting people with whom I was sharing a platform that day or interesting people who were in my audience and what they did for a living- everything from NASA astronauts on the east coast to shrinks in Denver to cattlemen in Canada.

I plan to share the same notes with my beautiful granddaughters, Ashley and Ava, when they start school. Only now, I can e-mail their teachers and can send pictures and video. In the old days, it was all snail-mail. Don't you just love technology?

Father's Day was not always good for me because I was often away. I was fortunate to be a member of the Million Dollar Round Table in the insurance industry. They always held their annual meetings on the week of Father's Day. So I missed quite a few of those celebrations.

Occasionally, MDRT would have a "Family Time" meeting, allowing families to tag along on the trips to the city where the meeting was being held. They would select cities like Orlando for those meetings, which is a great family destination.

When my kids were small, I used to go into their rooms to wake them in the mornings for school when I was in town. I'd take my trusty flash light and my wooden train horn. I'd flash the light in their eyes, blow the horn and yell "train!" I'm my kid's nightmare!

We always had our kids on commission. In fact, I charged them $228 to stay in our home, which covered the costs of their insurance (which I sold them), some money for their college education and food and housing costs. We never believed in allowances.

Our allowance system was simple. If there's enough food left over, you get to eat. If there's an empty bed, you get to sleep. Period. You pay to live here and you pay your way to stay. They had checking accounts from as early as they could write checks and they were required to manage their own money.

One month, Cory and Jason came to me and announced that they didn't have enough money in their checking account to pay their bills that month. So I introduced the concept of a loan. "For every dollar you're short this month, I'll loan you a dollar to make up the difference." I could see them elbowing one another. "This loan thingie is a good thing. Where has it been all our life?"

"But I have to charge you interest," I added. "For every dollar I loan you, you have to pay me $2 back!" One percent. (Okay, so I failed math).

"Dad, you can't charge rates like that!" Watch me. And I require collateral. "What's collateral?" they asked. "Your bike." I had to repossess a bike. Now they know about checking accounts, loans, collateral, repossessions and interest rates.

I admit I could have been a better father and present more often, but these were my gifts to my sons. What were yours"